North Korea threatens nuclear strike on Australia for backing US

The country turned its sights on Australia, after Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said North Korea would be subject to further sanctions.

North Korea’s state-run KCNA news agency quoted a foreign ministry spokesman accusing the Australian foreign minister of “spouting a string of rubbish against the DPRK over its entirely just steps for self-defence.

“If Australia persists in following the US moves to isolate and stifle the DPRK and remains a shock brigade of the US master, this will be a suicidal act of coming within the range of the nuclear strike of the strategic force of the DPRK.

“The present government of Australia is blindly and zealously toeing the US line.

“The Australian foreign minister had better think twice about the consequences to be entailed by her reckless tongue-lashing before flattering the US”.

North Korea said Australia was shielding a hostile US policy of nuclear threats and blackmail against North Korea which was the root cause of the current crisis on the Korean Peninsula and encouraged the US to opt for “reckless and risky military actions”.

Australia opposition says the threat is of “enormous concern”.

Labor’s defence spokesman Richard Marles however noted Pyongyang had made similar threats to other nations, even a veiled one at China.
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He believed the early signs coming out of China, an ally of North Korea, were positive, it saying if the problem is going to be dealt with it needs to be through “China, America and the whole world”.